This study examines the aging process as it is reflected in the development of socio-political orientations within two biologically-linked generations over a sixteen year period. The orientations dealt with include the capacities and motivations for involvement in public life; the quantity, quality, and timing of political participation; public policy preferences and goals; and evaluations of public institutions, actors and processes. Key ideas shaping the research include life stage, generation, and historical effects; the place of significant events and discontinuities in individual lives; later life learning and adjustment; and models of individual and aggregate level change and continuity. The study builds on an original 1965 data base consisting of interviews with a national probability sample of 1669 high school seniors and with at least one of their parents in 1562 instances. A follow-up study in 1973 gathered information from 81% of the original youths and 75% of the parents. The proposed investigation consists of returning to these subjects in 1981 for a new round of interviews, thus resulting in a three-wave panel for each generation and the accompanying parent-offspring pairs. Ancillary information would again be collected from the responents' spouses by means of a self-administered questionnaire. Substantive innovations in the 1981 data collection will include questions dealing with the politics of aging, public and private strategies for coping with life's problems, and the consequences of the nation's altered economic status. Emphasis will be put on updating the individuals' biographies and relating the life-stage transitions to change and continuity in socio-political orientations. The unique virtue of the design lies in its ability to track a large number of individuals from two generations through critical phases of the life course and over an extraordinary period of socio-political history. Analysis would be at both the aggregate and individual level, with special efforts being directed toward capitalizing on the analytic potential afforded by three-wave data.